People tend to contest or rebel against change that they did not engineer. However, over the years people have evolved by embracing change. Prisons were meant to punish and reduce criminals in the society but the negative perspective from the community in relation to prisoners resulted in the increased rates of inhuman living conditions and mistreatment towards the prisoners by the prison wardens. For instance, Alcatraz was one of the most famous maximum security prison where some of the most dangerous criminals were jailed. The hostility and use of the prisoners as lab rats for scientific experiments was shocking to many but such issues and mistreatment from the wardens are dominant in many prisons (Peck & Feder, 2017). The wardens were viewed as higher beings with all the officers operating as robots to implement each and every order, human or inhuman without questioning orders that are illegal or harmful to the inmates. Therefore, Carlson & Garrett (2008) argued, “Effective leadership of a prison or jail facility does not require a superintendent or warden to be charismatic and larger than life." I concur with these claims as the worshipped wardens who used their power and influence to intimidate officers in exercising their bias and inhumanity in prisons such as Alcatraz and Abu Ghraib Prison among other prisons in the world.
According to Carlson and Garrett, the world is changing with psychologists and sociologists arguing that the mistreatment of the inmates during their incarceration does not help correct or shape better behaviors, instead, these activities results in molding inmates to become hardcore criminals, therefore, governments are initiating programs that will allow conducive environment for staffs and inmates to improve the correctional purpose of incarceration (Carlson & Garrett, 2008). Researches over the years have demonstrated that even after serving their time in prisons, reformed and out-of-prison individuals are never accepted back to the society thus choose to reenter in crimes. These factors are associated with many things but leadership of the wardens or the administration plays the greatest roles.
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According to Ruddell and Norris (2008), job responsibilities are the top priorities for prison wardens therefore, it is their roles to enable safety and security operations, fostering institutional environment, manage critical incident, managing human resources, planning and implementing strategies. These roles are critical and must be exercised by leaders who are able to create an organizational culture where communication and feedback are enhanced. The leader should listen to their staffs on issues and consult before making key decisions that will impact their service deliveries and tasks (Ruddell & Norris, 2008). However, leaders must be able to make critical decision and solve problems through intelligent and correct means or mechanism as failure to respect the set rules will create an environment that does not respect the laws. In all the issues of being approachable, a mentor, coordinator and role model, wardens must learn that being liked by the staff is not their top priority because failure to determine the top priorities is to ensure that the tasks and strategies are implemented in the best way possible. The ability to ensure rules and tasks are correctly carried-out, the leader must be willing to enforce performance evaluation.
Performance evaluation is critical in any given organization but the ability to audit workers or strategies effectiveness is poor structural organization which makes it difficult to determine the person who did not comply with the regulations. The federal, states, and counties with prisons under their administrations should work together with the wardens and the staffs to formulate a work schedule and structural organization that simplifies audits. These changes will enable the warden and other executives to question these people which in the long run improves the implementation of the laws. Atkin-Plunk & Armstrong (2013) argued that leaders playing the role of motivators and enforcers, they must determine the health conditions of the staffs, improve their working and leaving conditions and improve the inmates living conditions. The authors noted that stress among the staffs is commonly neglected but it result in officers mistreating the inmates.
Determining the most suitable leadership style of governance in prisons is a complex issue due to advantages and disadvantage of any leadership style. However, it is evident that approachable, transformative and transactional leadership styles will enhance law and order, task-oriented staffs, trust which will enable delegation of power among the staffs and accountability. These characteristics will change prisons towards realization of jails as effective correctional operation.
References
Atkin-Plunk, C., & Armstrong, G. (2013). Transformational Leadership Skills and Correlates of Prison Warden Job Stress. Criminal Justice And Behavior , 40 (5), 551-568.
Carlson, P. M., & Garrett, J. S. (2008). Prison and jail administration: Practice and theory (2nd ed.) . Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Pub.
Peck, E., & Feder, E. (2017). Institutional Evils, Culpable Complicity, and Duties to Engage in Moral Repair. Metaphilosophy , 48 (3), 203-226.
Ruddell, R., & Norris, T., (2008). The Changing Role of Wardens: A Focus on Safety and Security. Corrections Today, 70, 36-39.
